“Stranger in the office! BEEP! BEEP!” the creature screamed fidgeting about on the floor.

I moved aside to let him get by. The creature dropped the sack and slipped past me to the exit.

I was watching his prompt departure when Fyodor pulled me down toward the sacks. He dug into the sack that was full of papers and pulled out the “shredded press cutting”, as it had been identified by the yellow creature. It was a bunch of small pieces of soft white leaves with something drawn on them. The biggest piece depicted a black-and-white image of a sly looking human. There were strange sets of pen strokes on the others which were somehow transformed into thoughts by my human’s brain. Those bladdy strokes on the leaves, as I later discovered, was an unusual form of writing, an awkward alternative to the cultivation of texts in bibliogardens which higher beings, like Kintoopians, normally use.

“…ПУТИН ЗАЯВЛЯЕТ…” (“…PUTIN CLAIMS…”) some of the pen strokes reported.

“…Н…” (“…THE U…”)

“…СИБЕ…” (“…SIBE…”)

“…ЛО…” (“…FO…”)

“…ИИ ‒ ЭТО МИСТИФИКАЦИЯ…” (“…IA IS A HOAX..”)

“…ЛИЛОСЬ… (“..ANDED…”)

“Cyrillic lettering? A Russian newspaper in Spain? That’s weird…” Fyodor mumbled.

The wall to the dim cave banged open and Señor Martinez rushed in.

“Cripes! You are still here!”

Fyodor hastily thrust the leaves into my pocket.

“Yes… I’m sorry… But now it’s all systems go,” he mumbled.

“Vámonos, caballero. Enough is enough. I can’t wait to show you your room!..” Señor Martinez said and then added quietly, “So that you eventually commence working.”

Señor Martinez escorted us, almost pushing us out of the dim cave and into the corridor.

“Was it you, Federico, who scared the shit out of poor Mao?” the chief asked stretching his proboscis.

“Poor Mao?”

“Our garbage sorter, ha-ha! I didn’t have any idea he was able to glide that rapido!” Señor Martinez punched my shoulder and winked. “But don’t try to tell me you are at odds with robots, boy! They are the goal, the dream and the future of Gaudissimus!”

“No, I’m just…”

“Don’t be sorry, Federico. He should get used to you. Let him scan your face properly next time. He is a smart guy, smarter than some of your colleagues… But now, c’mon! I have to show you a very important place, Federico. Vámonos!”

“My name is not Federico…” Fyodor moaned.

But Señor Martinez had already moved along the cave corridor.

I saw a number of rectangles on the walls which were, as I had already learned, called doors and were entrances to adjoining cave compartments. The chief did not seem to be capable of keeping silent. He continuously spurted words.

“Pues, aquí tenemos a las comerciales. Beautiful chicas, my boy! Over there you can find our programmers… you will communicate better with robots than with them!”

Following Señor Martinez, I brushed my hand over the cave’s wall just to feel its unnaturally smooth surface. Then I felt something bulging from the wall, turned to it, and froze with astonishment. There was a frightening photo in the frame.

“What’s that?” I could not help but ask.

Did you know..?
        
— The encoding of human speech into a weird set of strokes, called the “alphabetic” system, first happened in the Middle Bronze Age, at around 19-15 Earth’s century BCE.

— It took humans about 30 terrestrial centuries (1440 AC) to learn how to print those weird strokes,“the letters”, on dead leaves (paper).

— Since “paper” leaves do not connect to the planet, human texts never grow on their own. That makes them boringly static.